I’ve been feeling unsettled for a while, in this transitional phase between paper and electronic books. I love my paper books but hate lugging them around, be it on a train or aeroplane. I’ll eventually buy an e-reader, but for now I’m using my iPad. I know it isn’t the best choice for reading books, but I always have it in my bag, so it makes sense to use it.

I’m reading the coffee-table e-book, Fictitious Dishes: An Album of Literature’s Most Memorable Meals by Dinah Fried. It features fifty iconic meals from literature—cooked, styled and photographed by the author. Many of the author’s most vivid memories from books are of the meals the characters eat—this was her inspiration for the collection, and is something I can totally relate to. She’s captured some of my favourites: the first meal Heidi’s grandfather cooks for her, a piece of cheese toasted on a long fork over the open fire, with a big mug of the best milk she has ever drunk; the Finch family’s table loaded with food—chicken, salt pork, tomatoes, beans, grapes and a jar of pickled pigs’ knuckles—gifts to thank Atticus for defending Tom Robinson in To Kill a Mockingbird; and apple pie and ice cream from On the Road by Jack Kerouac.